To Drown Our Sorrows
by WinterLake25
Summary: Madeleine, after getting dumped by that two-timing Prussian, decides to sob in a park. Little did she know that an attractive Dane with a broken heart would be part of the deal. fem!Canada/Denmark with others inside


**A/N: No, I haven't died. I do indeed need to update Getting to Lovina and It Started With a Text, and also reply to some letters for Dear Mari, Dear Iceland. After completing NaNoWriMo, I went some really hard patches, and I just completely lost my muse. But I dug this up from the depths of my computer, and I figured I might as well edit it and post something up to make myself feel better.**

**And so:**

**Madeleine Williams : Fem!Canada**

**Anders Densen: Denmark**

**Nora: fem!Norway**

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><p>Madeleine Williams stared in shock at the two people who lay in her fiancé's bed. She had just returned from work, expecting an affection peck from Gilbert and a nice warm dinner already made. She was not expecting to find her best friend and her future husband tangled up in his bed, clad in nothing but the sweaty sheets. It was too much - just too much - to bear after the unfair reprimand from her boss at work and the clogged up traffic on the way here. It was too much to bear, knowing that their wedding was in two months. Or would have been. There was no freaking way Madeleine could go through with the wedding now.<p>

"I can't believe you would betray me like this!" she spat, pointing a finger accusingly at the couple in the bed.

The albino man had the gall to look her in the eyes and sneer. The light-haired woman at his side played with her hair, refusing to look at her once best friend in the eye. Madeleine ignored Gilbert's scathing look and glared at Elizaveta. Livid tears were beginning to spill from her eyes because of the scene that lay before her.

"So this is why you broke it off with Roderich a week ago, isn't it? You told me you had found someone new, and you didn't want to be the one to cheat on him. You whore, you thought of him before you thought of ME? I have never done anything to harm you in any way, and now you decide to sleep with my FIANCÉ?"

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Birdie," drawled Gilbert lazily. "After all, this is your own fault. It's so unawesome that you won't give it up to me before we tie the knot, and well, a man has his needs."

Madeleine was so repulsed by his answer that she yanked the engagement ring off her finger and threw it in his face. The German man made no visible reaction but to leer at her reddened face.

"It's over, Gilbert Fritz Beillischmidt. I hope you enjoy sending out the notifications that YOU blew the wedding. I NEVER want to see your disgusting face again."

Without another word, Madeleine took the bottle of maple syrup, newly bought, off the counter and left the two people she had trusted the most to their own devices. Somewhere in her mind, it registered that she needed to get the news out; however, at the moment, she could only feel the tears flowing down her cheeks. Taking deep breaths to relax herself, she forced herself to get out of the apartment building emotionlessly.

Once she was in her car again, Madeleine let herself completely break down. It was still way too much for her to handle alone. She had to talk to somebody. Now was just as good as any other time to get the announcements over with. Madeleine stuck her Bluetooth in her ear and began to make the calls. The first person she dialed was her half-brother Alfred. He could be a rather comforting person when he actually chose to be; in addition, he could help her with getting the news across.

"Mads! How'ya doing, sis?"

Madeleine took a deep breath so that she could still talk clearly. In the background, she could hear Alfred telling his wife that his beloved sister was calling him. She had to push down the waves of envy and hurt threatening to erupt from her system. As she fought to speak with complete calmness, she started the car.

"Al. The wedding's…The wedding's over. It's off. It's over."

She was gone from the apartment complex parking now. She could be anywhere within a matter of minutes. Her vision was still hazed with tears as Alfred squawked into her ear.

"What? I finally trust Gilbert with you and now the wedding's over?"

"You're going to believe everything I tell you?"

"Of course. I can't not trust my baby sister."

Tersely, Madeleine related the events that had just happened in the apartment to her brother. Miraculously, Al managed not to hang up in the middle of the phone call to begin Gilbert's death preparations. By the time Madeline was done recounting her absolutely horrific day, Al had gone from bubbly and carefree to serious and enraged.

"That is IT. I am going to pound that BASTARD into the dust tomorrow at work, and I do NOT give a damn about being fired. NO ONE messes with MY baby sister and gets away with it. And as the hero, I simply WILL NOT ALLOW him to!"

"Al."

"That Prussian bastard is going to get his ass kicked after the boys and I are through with him. We are going to make that good-for-nothing pile of crap pay for what he did."

"Al."

"We-Have you told Mom and Dad yet?"

"No. I'm going to visit them tomorrow. Can you come with me?"

"Anything for my baby sis. Alice wants to talk to you."

Madeleine waited patiently as Alfred gave the phone to his wife.

"Hello Madeleine. I just heard. I'm so very sorry about what happened."

"It's-it's fine, Alice. How's the baby doing?"

Madeleine stepped on the brakes as she reached a red light. In her mind's eye, she could see Alice rubbing her swollen abdomen as Alfred lovingly wrapped his arms around her. The scene was too overbearing, and Madeleine closed her eyes momentarily to stop the flow of tears washing her face.

"She's doing fine. Are you all right, Madeleine? Would you like to stay with us tonight? We always have a spare room open for you."

Madeleine managed to smile weakly through her tears at her sister-in-law's kindness. Politely declining the invitation, she hung up and proceeded to phone her next contact, Lovina Vargas. All calls to the irate Italian went straight to her voice mailbox. The blonde woman finally gave up on calling anyone else.

Wiping her eyes, she glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten. Madeleine thought of her little apartment on the other side of town, thirty minutes away. As more tears leaked down her face, she realized she was in no state to get home safely. She needed a quiet place with no people to cry herself dry. Glancing around the street she was on, Madeleine quickly found a quiet little park with enough light for her to be safe, but away from people. Parking her car carelessly, she slammed the door shut and proceeded to find a bench to sit on.

The cool night air soothed her flaming cheeks; quite suddenly, she realized that she was lulled by it and no longer wanted to cry. Her vision cleared, and Madeleine soon found that she was not the only one in the sleepy little park. Just as she was about to turn away, a strong voice with a heavy European accent called to her.

"Any reason you are wandering so late in a park?"

The speaker was male in his late twenties to early thirties with a mop of unruly blonde hair. He had a pile of beer cans at his side; some were empty, and others had yet to be opened. Madeleine was startled by how somber he seemed despite of the large number of empty cans by his side.

"It's a long story."

He smiled bitterly, opening another can. "Who doesn't have one these days?"

Madeleine was suddenly very alert and curious. Her own woes forgotten, she edged closer. This did not go unnoticed by the man, and he offered her a seat on the bench. After she sat down, he gave a can of beer. With a quick "Thanks," she began to drain the can.

"Anders Densen. You?"

"Madeleine Williams. Funny way to meet, eh?"

"What's your story then?" he asked, staring intently at her face.

"Tell you mine if you tell me yours."

"I would rather hear your story first."

"Alright. You want to hear my story? My boss blamed me for one of his failures this morning, and then he threatened to fire me. I made it through; everything was manageable. I went to buy my fiancé some maple syrup on the way to his apartment; due to that, I got stuck in the worst traffic in the history of this town. Still, everything was all right. I walk into his apartment to find him going at it like rabbits with my best friend, and suddenly, no, everything is wrong. I was supposed to get married in two months, but he ruined it. My life is off beam, my happiness is ruined, and I have to pay the damn cancellation fees for what would have been the biggest event of my life. That's my story."

Anders swirled the beer in his can and took a swig. Madeleine drained her own, the heated tears flowing down her cheeks once more. Without saying anything, she fixed her gaze upon him. He ran a hand through his wild mane of blonde hair, making it stick up even more. He stared at his empty can, as if trying to think of the right words to say. Just as Madeleine was about to prod him into speaking, he began to speak in a low, melancholy voice.

"I fell in love with a beautiful but very proud and sarcastic girl while I was in secondary school, and after years and years of chasing, she finally agreed to go out with me. I was so amazingly happy that she finally said yes. At first, she denied caring for me deeply, but she ended up coming around. We were so happy. We ended up going to university together, and after graduation, we decided to get married. The first year of our marriage was the best. We were so in love, young, and ready to take on whatever got at us. On the day of our one year anniversary, we decided to move here. I had a good job opportunity, and she was already searching for one of her own.

"We moved here with high hopes and expectations. The first six months went so well. I got settled in my job, and she got settled in hers. Everything went so fine, and then, one day, she told me we were going to have a baby. I don't think I can remember a time that I was happier. There the two of us were, not even twenty-five and expecting our firstborn. I wish I could say our life got better from there, but it didn't. In fact, things went downhill."

Here, Anders paused and opened another can of beer. His eyes stared into a far off, distant place as he took a swig and continued.

"One of the reasons we decided to leave Europe was because of a man named Ivan Braginski. He attended the same secondary school as us, and he had fallen in love with Nora, my wife, as well. From the very start, I hated him and he hated me. We were rivals in everything: athletics, academics, popularity, and even Nora. At first, she made friends with him, but soon, she realized what a sick psychopath he was. He had forced a poor little Latvian named Raivis to do horrible acts for him, all of which are too wicked to be even mentioned. Nora tried desperately to avoid him, even moving to Denmark with me so that he couldn't track her to her home in Norway. He lost pursuit of her once we went to university.

"He found us once more very soon after our graduation. This time, he tried to take her by force. We moved around quite a bit, running from him again and again. It was miracle how we could still be so in love and so happy even when he would not stop pursuing her after our marriage. But finally, when he almost succeeded in kidnapping my lovely Nora, I was offered a job here. As soon as possible, we moved here.

"Everything went fine for a long time. Nora's brother was the only person who knew about our whereabouts. We settled here, expecting to never see him again. But when she was four months pregnant, he found us again. Somehow, he had tortured, blackmailed, and threatened a vague answer out of my brother-in-law. This time, he was not taking no for an answer. I was away at work when he broke into our house. Nora fought him as much as she could, but he was so much stronger. He finally stabbed her twenty-seven times and left. When I got home from work, she only had one breath left."

A few tears leaked down Anders' face. He closed his eyes, as if trying to block out the image of his wife's bloody body. He took some deep breaths, but a sob still escaped.

"I tried so hard to get the ambulance there fast enough, but it was too late. She died before we were even five meters to the hospital. There was only one thing I could do after that. I had to avenge her killer. I assisted the police as much as I could in tracking down Ivan. I wanted to see him suffer for all of the crimes he had committed over the years. We finally caught him one year after my wife's death. There was enough evidence to convict him of murder, and they gave him the death sentence. The deed was done today. It's been two years since my wife's death, and there hasn't been one day that I haven't missed her. I'm here today because we used to come to this park every weekend. Since that bastard is now dead, I wanted to come here to remember her and to let the wandering spirits of her and our child finally be at rest. How was that for a story?"

Madeleine was speechless. "I offer my condolences."

The Danish man gave a low, dry chuckle.

"I think I've talked too much. I apologize."

He didn't sound apologetic at all.

Madeleine discovered that she didn't feel very apologetic either.

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><p><strong><span>AN: Pretty angsty...Sorry I made Ivan the bad guy! I love him to bits, but I originally had Berwald being the bad guy, which just didn't fit. So here it is. **

**And do you think I should continue this? It feels like it could be an opened-ended story or it could be continued. Let me know if you'd like to see this continued. **

**I hope you enjoyed!**


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